If you had told me a few months ago that the HTC Vive would cost $799 (about £650) at launch, I'd have spat out my tea, banged my fist on the table, and shouted "you sir, are a buffoon!" Bu then Oculus announced the price of the Rift: £500. Since that day, it was inevitable that HTC would announce a higher price. I mean, at the very least, you get more stuff with the Vive—the wacky doughnut-shaped controllers, room sensors, and of course the headset itself, with its many photosensors and a front facing camera for all those "chaperone" safety visuals.

Justified or not, however, I rarely plunk down £650 on anything without some serious soul-searching, especially when it comes to non-essentials. For me, the Vive is simply priced out of reach.

Having made up my mind that no, I'm not going to buy a Vive at launch, I had an opportunity to try one again here at MWC—and I couldn't resist. Knowing that the Vive costs £650, and knowing that I wouldn't be buying one at launch, I wondered: would I still think the Vive was worth it? And more worryingly, would it convince me to buy one?

The Vive I used, which is essentially the same as the version consumers will get their hands on come April, is at this point an accomplished piece of kit, a world away from the hacked-together feel of early headsets. Everything has been clearly laid out and constructed to make it as easy as possible to get the Vive set up and the headset on your head. The Lighthouse laser tracking boxes now communicate wirelessly with each other, making them easier to mount, while the simple velcro strap on the headset is easy to adjust. There are even two different types of face mount in the box, one for rounded faces and another for flatter ones in order to minimise light bleeding in from the outside world.

The controllers are a little odd, but they feel well constructed and are comfortable to hold. I'm told the big hole is there in order to reduce the weight of the controllers and to add in a few more sensors. They're definitely lighter than the previous controllers, and I could certainly see myself using them over longer periods of time. I particularly like the small knob on the side of the headset that helps adjust the distance of the lenses inside the headset, helping glasses wearers like me (I'm short-sighted) get the picture in focus with or without glasses on. There's even a little info box that pops up when you twiddle it to let you know how far you've adjusted it.

Unfortunately, there's still the issue of all those cables that the Vive needs in order to work. The cables pass over the top of the headset and are largely unobtrusive, but I could definitely feel that they were there when I was using it, and there's a risk of getting tangled up if you're too raucous during play. The Oculus has those cables as well, but it's less of an issue given that it's a largely stationary experience.

With all that said, the Vive definitely feels like a real product now, and having used all the VR headsets out there from dev kit to retail, it's astonishing to see just how far they've come in what has been a relatively short space of time. But then they jolly well should feel like actual products if they're going to cost £500 or more.

I could buy a Vive... or fix my house’s heating system...

So there I was: the Vive headset was on, the controllers in-hand. I could feel my fight-or-flight response begin to kick in: I was primed to dismiss the Vive as being far too expensive, a totally unjustifiable expense in a world where instead of repairing my rapidly disintegrating boiler and central heating system, I'd taken to shoving a few buckets underneath it to catch the leaks.

And then the games started, and I swear I could feel my credit card tremble a little in my wallet. For all the superlatives that have been thrown at VR devices over the years, and for all the times we've been repeatedly reminded that it's "the next platform" (cringe), when you a stick a VR headset on with a quality bit of software and the world melts away, there's a feeling that yes, this is it. This is the future.

Further Reading

I had that moment when I watched Oculus' 3D animated short Henry the Hedgehog and had a tea party with some balloon animals on the floor. I had that moment when I tried Oculus Touch and played ping pong with a stranger while entire galaxies rushed by behind us. And I had that moment again today with the Vive as I pawed my way around Fantastic Contraption, the headset and the controllers melting away as I got creative with physics to build wonderfully tactile (and often hilariously wonky) creations.

The super dual-wielding and manic dodging of Space Pirate Trainer, the oddly satisfying coffee-making of Job Simulator, and the unnerving sensation of staring GLaDOS in the face as she towered over me in Valve's Aperture Science demo—these are all experiences that made me realise just how brilliant, and how important, VR has become.

So today, as I pulled the Vive's headset off and returned to real world, I was sure: yes, the Vive is 100 percent worth it. And yes, I'm probably going to buy one. I mean, when you're ensconced in the embrace of a virtual world, who needs a warm house anyway, right?